Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro calls for gold held in Bank of England to be returned

Venezuela's left wing strong man Nicolas Maduro called for the Bank of England to return its gold (Source: Getty)

James Booth

Venezuela’s embattled President Nicolas Maduro said yesterday that the Bank of England should repatriate the Venezuelan gold it holds in its vaults.

“They have sequestered billions of dollars in gold in London that are ours - that is money to buy supplies, raw materials, food, medicines. They have sequestered $1.4bn [£1.09bn] for many months, that we are going to use to buy food, medicines in Euroclear,” Maduro told the BBC.

The Bank of England has initially refused to relinquish control of the gold to Maduro’s regime, citing operational issues around shipping and insurance.

“It's protected by the central banks. It's gold that belongs to the central bank of Venezuela. And I hope that the international law is respected. And the Central Bank of Venezuela is respected. And that hopefully the law will prevail,” he said.

In response to a question about whether Venezuela would let foreing aid convoys through its borders, Maduro said: “They should send a convoy with the dollars they have stolen from us. Send a convoy with the gold with the 80 tonnes. Let it come, the convoy with money. It's our money. With that, we could solve all our country's problems.”

A Bank of England spokesperson said: “As you would expect, the Bank does not comment on individual customer relationships. In all its operations, the Bank observes the highest standards of risk management and abides by all relevant legislation. Before going ahead with any transaction, the Bank needs to be satisfied that the counterparty has the authorisations necessary to request the transaction, that all relevant sanctions are complied with and that there is no evidence that the transaction will involve relevant criminal activity.”